Big congratulations to Bill Lord who ran his 50th marathon today at the age of 69. He completed the Clarence DeMar marathon, in Keene, NH. You can see results here.Bill has been running for decades and has a 2:59 marathon PR.He also coaches a group that meets every Wednesday evening at the Barnstable HS track.

Erik Swanson...also running Clarence DeMar...posted a nifty 2:51:07 for 8th overall and 2nd in the 40-49 age group. I suspect Erik was looking to run slightly faster but he's in the midst of Ironman training so he might not have been in peak form.

Sue Eastman ran the Zooma half marathon in Falmouth today in a time of 1:57:35...9th in her age group. Nice. Results of the race can be found here.

Amber Crowley also ran the Zooma half marathon in Falmouth. She ran 1:49:07 and finished 2nd in her age group. Amber has been coming to the Wednesday night workouts and feels they helped her performance today. I don't know if that's true but the last several Wednesday workouts have been well-suited to half-marathon and marathon preparation...so maybe it helped a bit. But Amber has been working very hard...just like so many others...and today she got to demonstrate the effects of all the work.

Thanks Paul. I felt great til miles 12 and 13. My fastest pace was at mile 9 - an 8:34. Then I got a cramp in my left foot's middle toe, then my right lower calf started in. I had trained only up to 10 miles but not sure if that was an issue. My last PR was in New Bedford at 2:07 - taking 10 minutes off my time was awesome even w/cramps!

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Paul

9/30/2013 12:44:49 am

Sue...that's some serious improvement. I doubt the cramping was from having a longest run of only 10 miles. It may be you needed a bit more running volume in total...and more runs of 10 miles or so. It's usually more about consistent volume than about how long the longest run is...if that makes sense.

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Susan E.

9/30/2013 02:45:05 am

My weekly mileage has been 20-26 miles.However, I believe you're right and that I need to add volume. I can certainly do a couple 9 or 10-milers in a week since that's been feeling comfortable. Now that I'm on my own schedule (from helping w/Zooma group) I'll work on that. thanks

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Paul

9/30/2013 03:53:19 am

Yes...your weekly volume is a bit light to handle the half marathon well. You experienced that. And you don't want to put too much weight on a weekly long run...like so many of the typical marathon and half marathon training schedules do. So your idea of bumping up another run in the week...so that you have 2 runs in the 8-10 mile range...would probably work very well.

Paul

9/30/2013 12:47:30 am

Erik Swanson told me today that he went out with the leaders for 9 miles at Clarence DeMar this past weekend...5:40 pace at 3 miles. He suffered from the overly fast pace but still enjoyed the experience...despite the pain.